Gavage

Gavage literally means: "The introduction of nutritive material into the stomach by means of a tube" and is most commonly used to describe how Foie Gras, a fattened goose liver, is made.  However in the West-African nation of Mauritania, traditional discourse has lead to a humanized version of this practice, where poor families are force-feeding girls as young as 5 to gain as much weight as possible. (Gerteiny, 1967) According to the CIA world fact book half the nations population works in agriculture and lives in poor conditions.  The Government of Mauritania historically has been riddled with corruption, and is often powerless in enforcing any meaningful social law.  In his book Mauritania, Alfred G. Gerteiny wrote this of gavage:

Women are subjected to gavage-that is, forced feeding, in order to gain weight. Fathers send daughters 10 or 11 years of age to live with herdtending dependent aznagui who see to it that the girls gain weight … often by being tied to the ground, and, to expand their stomachs, given nothing by water for three days. Then they are crammed with milk, usually camel’s milk.

Even though that book was written in 1967,  the practice of gavage is still used throughout parts of Mauritania.(Fat or Fiction? Mauritania)  Not only is this type of practice physically hurtful for adolescent girls, the emotional damage that is inflicted on these developing children's self-image is something that can not be measured.  The cultural history of Mauritania may be able to shed light on this practice however.  In the video provided below its apparent how centuries of famine and poor economic conditions have shaped Mauritania's beliefs of what society views as "beautiful".  Skinny is is equated with poor and unfulfilled.  Even in an husbands eyes the bigger his wife is equals the more he has been able to provide for her which is in important aspect of Mauritania culture.

This idea of beauty is in stark contrast to the beauty standards that are held in the United States, where the main message that is portrayed is the skinnier the better. When we think of beautiful, desirable women, the western world associates these adjectives to thin, fit women with model-like physiques. This is what society teaches the community and therefore, this is what is learned. The media aids with our subservient as seen in such documentaries as "Miss Representation" a film written, directed, and produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, which explores how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in influential positions by circulating limited and often disparaging portrayals of women.

It is easy to understand how the families of these girls families believe the opposite, where the traditional discourse has always been the bigger you are the more food you have, which is a desirable factor in a land historically riddled with famine and starvation.

Video showing the practice of gavage